To ask how Brexit would affect immigration?

[Bearbehind]

It scares me that, as a nation, we have to vote in the EU referendum as there doesn't seem to be any impartial informative advice on which to base a decision.

I think I've made my mind up based on a number of factors but, as far as I can see, the question of immigration will be make or break for many people.

I'm not sure leaving the EU will result in us being able to control immigration much better than we do now but I'm the first to admit I know very little about it.

Will it really change much?

A salutary look at some solid facts and figures here - fullfact.org/europe/immigration-eu-referendum/

Full Fact, despite the name, are just about as biased a source as you can get and those 'facts and figures' will be very much selective to suit their purposes.

They were refused charity status for lacking objectivity in 2011 when they were described as 'not being established for the public benefit'.

Those 'facts and figures' are certainly not the full story, nothing from them ever is and it always has an agenda.

Also any refugees are fleeing hell on earth, and our membership of the EU or lack of it will make not one jot of difference to their hardship and their desperation to escape it. If they are hiding in container lorries etc, it is because they have ran out of other options. Their distress is real and so therefore is their determination.

Really? Albanians on the coast of France are escaping 'hell on earth'? Have you been to Albania lately? I have, it was lovely. Certainly not hell on earth. Lovely seaside, countryside and a cafe culture in the capital Tirana. Peaceful.

fleeing hell on earth what, France?

If we leave the EU then we can be more selective about who we allow to settle in the UK
You're still missing the point.
We have always had the freedom to be selective of the immigrants who come from outside the EU. That's more than 50% of immigrants. The government has promised to do that for years but has failed to do so.
For immigrants from the EU, we can be no more selective than that. And only at the price of no trade deals.

"Also any refugees are fleeing hell on earth, and our membership of the EU or lack of it will make not one jot of difference to their hardship and their desperation to escape it. If they are hiding in container lorries etc, it is because they have ran out of other options. Their distress is real and so therefore is their determination."

Most refugees are from countries like Syria, Afangistan, Somalia rather than Albania. I feel that the EU needs a more coordinated response to the refugee crisis. Rather than taking refugees from Calais the UK is better to take them from the camps in Turkey. All EU countries should take some refugees and the refugees should not be given a choice over which EU country they live in.

We need to look at the population density of areas where refugees are going to be settled and plan how services like health, education and housing will be provided to the refugees. Countries like the UK should shoulder the costs of integrating the refugees and maybe the refugees should be settled in countries where the cost of housing/ living is a lot less. A true refugee would accept a home in Romania.

I feel that freedom of movement and reduced boarder control is bad for the EU. It may well be inconvient to have stop and show your passport, but the fact that UK has some boarder control makes it one of the safest EU countries.
Maybe refugees should be given a 5 year visa and the situation in their home country should be reviewed.

I think people are missing my point. I'm not condoning the dangerous practices of illegally entering the UK. My point was the leaving the EU would not enable us to reduce immigration and it's not fair to deceive people by making them think otherwise.

My point was the leaving the EU would not enable us to reduce immigration and it's not fair to deceive people by making them think otherwise.

Actually we don't know if it would or not. It would depend on any post Brexit deal. potentially it would but we just don't know.

I can't see the EU agreeing to a trade deal with the UK with a freedom of movement clause. This is based on the trading deals they have in place already with non member european countries, all of which have the FOM clause.

*without a freedom of movement clause, that should be.

We trade with plenty of other countries outside the EU with no need for a "trade deal".

We're in a stronger position to negotiate than both Norway and Switzerland.

Plus the EU would want to consider how its stance would look to the outside world. The EU is increasingly starting to look like an aggressive expansionist organisation which uses economic tactics to bully both members and those who sit just outside. It's debatable whether applying punitive measures would be in its interests.

There's another briefing on the possible implications of Brexit from the House of Commons library

BoJo is hoping for a vote of no-confidence in DaveCam & leadership election & snap election within next 2 yrs, I reckon.

Will it really change much?

Impossible to predict.

The immutable fact is that we don't have the option within the EU - outside it we'd be able to make our own rules.

Whether in practise anything would be much different is unknowable and anyone who says "but we'd still have to do x or y" is just expressing an opinion, not giving an unbiased view.

This is worth a read - BBC analysis of whether an out vote would necessarily cut immigration.

And one from Full Fact for the many nutters people who think the BBC is a fascist/communist organisation. (Delete as appropriate)

About half of our net immigration comes from outside the EU. The only Brexiter comments about this half have been to suggest we could make the terms more flexible, let more non-EU immigration in.

non-EU immigration is already running at ~170,000 per year (on an upward trend).
At least some EU-migrants could get in using the rules for non-EU types.
Plus leaving EU and getting "control of our borders" probably means fewer Brits leaving UK to go live in EU.
So (unless economy tanks & no one wants to come live here) Net migration figures would go UP.
That's why net migration figures likely to stay near 300,000.

Agree with you, lljkk - the question people aren't asking is, given that the government could have cut non-EU massively, why haven't they? A: because we're short of lots of key people.

And I happen to think that key people include the people getting up early and doing backbreaking work to pick our potatoes for example.

Op immigration is one of Brexits trump cards.

We know Cameron pledged to get it under control and because we are in the EU he was unable to do so.

Figures are higher than ever. So all Remain can say is " immigration wont change if we come out" .

of course we could limit it when we came out!

it will

yes because no one picked potatoes pre 2004?

www.frankfield.co.uk/latest-news/articles/news.aspx?p=1021270

vote leave if you care about the uk poor. ^^ Labour vote leave.

The EU is increasingly starting to look like an aggressive expansionist organisation which uses economic tactics to bully both members and those who sit just outside. It's debatable whether applying punitive measures would be in its interests.

^^ this.

The counter argument is that by limiting EU migration we could reduce foreign low wage workers (Romanians, Bulgarians, etc). Who are 'stealing' jobs from low wage earners native to UK. And imposing selves on schools/NHS etc. (some say). I haven't seen any numbers about what % of recent EU-immigrants are working in UK on relatively low wages.

Low wage-earners in UK also have some benefits from big pool of low wage earners, though (to some extent). It means cheaper food, lower taxes (low skill workers employed by councils), etc., cheaper services & goods, more flexible working hours, PT work...

That's aside from the fact that relatively few Brits make themselves available for agricultural work. tbh, I live in a very rural area & there are no low-skill farming jobs advertised on job centre website for agricultural workers within 10 miles. Which search terms should I use? We looked a lot recently for my feckless teenager; yet supposedly the farmers have to advertise locally as well as in Poland/Ukraine etc. I'm . If DS could get 30 miles across the county, I found some asparagus harvesting work for him...

Jelly are you saying that you currently have to show ID if you travel between NI and GB? Because I don't believe that is true. Individual airlines might have their own policies, but I've certainly travelled by ferry plenty of times to ROI without ever showing ID, and my DC have flown with me and not had to show ID.

The immigration crisis from eastern Europe, the Refuge crisis and the general migrant fleeing Morocco crisis, are all vastly different.

I do feel however the general public would be much happier welcoming MORE genuine refuges if we could get the EU open door immigration under some sort of control.

LIJK

Frank Field, Labour MP for one of the poorest most deprived areas of the UK would say very differently.

I know who I am inclined to believe and I have been to Birkenhead.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3625089/Shanty-towns-suburbia-Migrants-working-just-40-day-living-squalid-conditions-makeshift-camps-London.html

^^ this is the kind of place you cheap ee worker is living, to survie on the wages they are being paid.

Is this fair on anyone?